Welcome To My Life
by Mummyluvr
Summary: Sam’s got an acceptance letter and an angry older brother who isn’t exactly making sense. Of course Sam knows what it’s like to be him. They’ve lived the same life, right? Pre-series one-shot.


**Title:** Welcome To My Life

**Summary:** Sam's got an acceptance letter and an angry older brother who isn't exactly making sense. Of course Sam knows what it's like to be him. They've lived the same life, right? Pre-series.

**Rating:** K+

**A/N:** This is sort of a songfic. I wanted to try something new, integrating the lyrics into the story by making them part of the dialogue. Call it an experiment. Hopefully not a failed one. Anyway, the song is "Welcome to my Life" by Simple Plan.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the show or the song. I'm just trying something new for fun.

* * *

Welcome To My Life

Sam tried to avoid his brother, he really did. He still had a hard time accepting the fact that Dean was somehow faster than he appeared. It stood to reason that Sam should be the fast one. He was younger, skinnier, had longer legs. Somehow, though, Dean managed to beat him to his bedroom door.

"Hold on," the older man said, spreading his arms and legs and grasping the doorframe, blocking Sam's entrance. "This isn't over."

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed, his shoulders slumping. He hadn't been expecting this reaction from Dean, had been saving all of his fight for his father. "Yeah, it is. At least, until dad gets home." If_ he gets home_, his mind finished.

"No. You're not telling dad about this."

Sam straightened up at that. "And why not?"

"Because you're not going."

The younger man raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

"And why not?"

Dean scowled. "How ya gonna pay, Sammy?"

"My name's Sam, and I got a full ride. _They'll_ pay for everything." He smirked, confident that the statement would bring the argument to a close until their father's return.

"How are you gonna get there?"

Sam shrugged, pushing his brother roughly out of the way. "Bus."

Dean let himself be moved, his body suddenly weak, knees threatening to buckle at the realization that Sam had everything, his whole future, planned out. "Why?"

Sam turned to look at him, face contorted in confusion. "What?"

"_Why_?"

The younger man stared at his brother, ignoring the burning need to pack, to smile, to cheer, to have some kid of celebration because _it was finally over. _He was in charge of his life. But Dean… Dean should have been happy, shouldn't have sounded so small and scared. "Why, what?"

"Why do you want to leave so bad?"

Sam opened his mouth, then closed it. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure. There was so much, built up over so many years, that there was no single, simple reason for it. He sighed. "Um. I dunno. I guess… do you ever feel like breaking down?"

Dean blinked- or, maybe, it was a flinch- and shrugged. "I… what?"

"Do you ever feel out of place?" Sam tried again. "Like, somehow… you just don't belong, and _no one _understands you?"

Dean shook his head. "Sammy, of course you belong. We're a family. We always have been-"

"No, Dean. I know that. I just… I mean." He sighed again. "Do you ever want to run away?"

"What?"

"Just run. Run and never look back. Just get away from all of this. The demons and the monsters and the ghosts and dad? Don't you ever-?"

"No. And you shouldn't, either. Sam, look, we'll sit down and we'll have a rational, reasonable talk about this, ok? You don't have to ran away. I'll be better."

It was Sam's turn to blink- or maybe flinch. "Dean…"

"Come on. We can fix this. We can stay-"

"Do you lock yourself in your room?" It was a quiet question, almost too quiet, but Dean heard it. And this time it was definitely a flinch.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Do you lock yourself in your room with the radio on, turned up so loud that no one hears you screaming?"

"Sammy…"

"_I _hear."

Dean swallowed. "I can explain."

Sam shook his head. "No, it's all right. Dean, I know. I know what it must be like-"

"No, you don't know what it's like, when… when _nothing_ feels all right."

"Dean-"

"You don't know what it's like to be like me," the older man shouted, marching into the room, his finger poking at Sam's chest as the teenager backed away.

"I didn't-"

"To be hurt, to feel lost, to be left out in the dark."

"I-"

"You don't know, Sammy. I made sure of it. And now you're just gonna walk away and leave me all alone."

"Dad'll-"

"Oh, yeah. Because dad's _always _been there for me."

"Hey," Sam pointed out, "dad left me in those motel rooms, too, remember?"

"Yeah, only _you_ had someone there to take care of you." He paused, sighed, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "And he'll just keep leaving after you're gone," Dean muttered. "And you'll have new friends. A _home_. You won't be here, won't be around to be kicked when you're down."

"Dean-"

"To feel like you've been pushed around. No one's ever used you, Sam. I wouldn't let 'em."

"What are you talking about?"

"Every blow, every criticism, I took the brunt of it. To spare your precious feelings. Do you have any idea what that did to me? To have everybody blame me? To be on the edge of breaking down?"

"I-"

"And then you walk away. Just. Like. Dad."

"And no one's there to save you. Is that what this is about? You think you're gonna do something stupid if I leave?"

Dean shook his head. "No. No- well, maybe. No."

"Then what?"

Dean looked at him, looked him straight in the eye. "You still think we're on a level playing field? Because that's what I'm trying to tell you here, Sammy. We're not the same. No, you don't know what it's like."

Sam rolled his eyes, reaching under his bed to pull out a battered duffle bag. "Oh, boo-hoo." He slammed the bag up onto his bed and opened it. "Welcome to my life."

He tried to ignore the hurt look on his brother's face. He hadn't meant to make the words so biting, so harsh. He just couldn't wrap his mind around what Dean was trying to tell him, what he was implying.

Sam had been there. They'd had the same childhood. Yeah, maybe Dean had taken charge, but he was older. That was his job. He'd been the only able body around to do it.

He was probably just jealous, Sam decided. Jealous that he couldn't leave, that he hadn't been given a golden ticket out of the crappy life their father had dumped them in.

"Sam?"

He fought the urge to look back at the older man, and instead concentrated on the task at hand. He had to pack. He was going to college. He was going to _Stanford_.

"Sammy?"

He spun, turned so fast that the room around him never really stopped and he nearly toppled. Dean was there in an instant, at his side, holding him up.

"Easy, there, tiger."

Sam shrugged him off. "What?" He went to the closet, tore through the few shirts he had, ripping them off hangers and throwing them in the duffle in one big pile. Dean frowned and pulled them all out, laying them on the bed, folding them neatly.

"You're gonna want to fit some pants in there, too, Sammy."

"Stop calling me that."

Dean smiled. "What? You think you change your name, you'll be a different person? Do you wanna be somebody else?"

Sam sighed. "_Sammy_ is not an adult name. _Sammy _is a chubby twelve-year-old. Ok?"

Dean shrugged. "Fine. If you think a grown-up name will help you fit in, so be it."

The younger man let his eyes travel from the shirts his brother was folding to the man himself. "Doesn't it ever get to you?"

"What?"

"The life. What we do. Moving around all the time, never staying in the same place. Are you sick of feeling so left out?"

"Why would I be?"

"Because there's more to life than hunting, Dean. Aren't you desperate to find something more before your life is over? Can't you imagine that?"

"What?" Dean asked. "A wife, a white picket fence, a couple of kids, a dog? No, I couldn't do it. I'd rather die." He paused, sighed, started putting the shirts into Sam's duffle, a sure sign that he was coming around, would let his brother go. "Are you stuck inside a world you hate? I mean, really?"

Sam nodded, slowly at first. "Yeah. I am. I mean, growing up, all those people that tried to reassure us, that tried to tell us that everything would be all right. I hated it. It was fake. Everything but you and me. Everything else was lies, and I hated it. Didn't you?"

"No. They only did it to help us, spare a little innocence. You can't blame them."

"But now?" Sam pried.

"Now, what?"

"Are you sick of them? Are you sick of everyone around, with their big fake smiles and their stupid lies, while deep inside you're bleeding?"

Dean stopped what he was doing, frozen halfway between the shirts and the duffle, fingers perfectly still. "What did you say?" he whispered.

"Sometimes it feels like I'm getting ripped apart inside," Sam admitted. "Like I'm gonna go crazy if I stay here. Like dad doesn't understand-"

"No," Dean said, his voice strong, loud, forceful. "No, you don't know what it's like."

"Man, you keep saying that."

"Well, it's true. You've never known, not really. I wouldn't let you."

"I still don't understand."

Dean nodded. "That's kinda the point. Means I've done my job." He sighed and went back to packing. "When _nothing_ feels all right," he whispered, almost as an afterthought, a hint of sadness in his usually strong voice.

Sam stood and watched him for a while. "You know," he said. "You don't know what it's like to me. To be hurt. To feel _lost_. You and dad, you kept things from me. You kept the biggest secret in the world from me until I was nine, and even then, I had to figure it out for myself. You have no idea what it's like to be left out in the dark. Not like that."

"Shut up, Sam."

"No. You have no idea what I've been through. You have no idea what it's like to be pushed around. You think dad's bad? Try dealing with both you and him, see how you like it."

Dean looked back up at him, scowling. "I'm serious, Sam. You have no idea-"

"To be on the edge of _breaking down_. I'm close, Dean. I need this. I need to get away from him."

"From me."

"What?"

"You heard me," Dean said. "You just want to get away from me, from ol' Drill Sergeant Dean. You wanna go out into that big, scary, mean world where no one's there to save you. And you want me to just let you? No."

"You don't know what it's like."

"What? To have dad yelling at you? To have his faith in you break down completely? To have a sibling that seems to hate you? Man, welcome to my life."

"Yeah?" Sam said. "Well at least no one ever lied straight to your face."

"And no one ever stabbed you in the back."

"You might think I'm happy, but I'm not gonna be. Ok? Not here."

"Everybody always gave you what you wanted-"

"You never had to work. It was always there. Dammit, Dean. You were _made_ for this. I wasn't. Just get that through your head."

Dean shook his head. "You don't know what it's like-"

"_What it's like_?"

"To be hurt," the older man said softly, hanging his head. "To… to feel lost."

"I don't wanna do this," Sam said. "I don't want to hunt, to kill, to be left out in the dark with those _things_."

"Sammy, you have no idea what you're doing to me, here."

"No, Dean, you've made it perfectly clear to me since you found that letter. I'm leaving you here to be kicked when you're down, to feel like you've been pushed around-"

"To be on the edge of breaking down," Dean interrupted, something sharp in his voice, something that left it biting and acidic, bitter.

"And no one's there to save you?" Sam asked, finally starting to get it, to realize that maybe this whole college thing was being seen as more than a simple abandonment of a lifestyle.

"No," Dean muttered, shaking his head. "You don't know what it's like."

"What it's like?"

Dean turned on him, pain flaring in eyes that usually seemed so carefree, so happy, so loved. "To be _hurt_, to feel _lost_, to be _left_ out in the dark." He looked so small, so weak, so sad, that Sam's heart clenched in his chest, threatening to spill emotion from behind his eyes.

He nodded, finally understanding. His brother was broken, had been forced to take on the role of a parent, and was now suffering the worst kind of empty-nest syndrome there was. His son didn't just want to leave, he _needed_ to get out. And Dean knew it.

"To be kicked when you're down," Sam said slowly, trying to convey that he knew, that he'd figured it out, and that it had _nothing_ to do with Dean. "To feel like you've been pushed around. To be on the edge of breaking down, and no one's there to…" he trailed off, voice choked by tears as he realized what he was saying. "No. I don't know what it's like."

Dean shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the level of emotion clogging the room. He fiddled with the zipper on his brother's bag. "Knew you'd get it eventually, College Boy."

Sam stepped forward, stepped toward him, arm held out. He didn't know what he was planning on doing, just knew that he had to fix this, to fix _them_, because there was obviously something wrong. "Dean-"

He was cut off by the sound of the front door opening as their father arrived. He heard the clunk of a bag full of weapons being dropped on the tile floor, the scuff of shoes as his father entered the kitchen, a moment of sweet silence, and then John yelled his name. He'd found the letter.

Dean looked at his brother an smiled, a sad expression. "Welcome to my life."

* * *

The End.

Ok, I'd really like to hear what you guys think about this one. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. I'd like for it to work, I guess. Feedback is much appreciated :)


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